


Unhidden

by Chessie_Lynne



Category: All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, Pierce the Veil, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Angst, Fluff, Healing, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Prostitution, Rape Recovery, Romance, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Violence, scenes of war
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chessie_Lynne/pseuds/Chessie_Lynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poster boy for bad beginnings, Jack Barakat calls the concrete of Vancouver his home. After dropping out of school to support his parents' declining health, Jack lost far more than an education on the streets. After years in the game, he's resigned to the fact that change is simply not in the cards for him. However, an act of kindness from a stranger is about to turn Jack's world upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unhidden

Life is but a series of car crashes and dreams which go so easily from up in lights to up in smoke. Down on Hastings lived a boy who knew all of this too well. In his eyes were the most precious of diamonds that glittered in the face of darkness, while encased in his chest was a heart crafted from coal in the wake of his tumultuous life. He called a broken apartment in bricks his home, for each day that his feet shuffled across the filthy, green carpet, past the empty amber bottles that littered the counters, past his alcohol drenched father asleep on the couch, past the thin wooden door with holes punctured through which he could hear the radio blaring songs he could never understand sung in Lebanese, down to the door at the end of the hall where he could find salvation from the woes that plagued his young mind.

Each day he would push the low hanging door across the carpet and greet the famous faces that decorated the sickeningly yellowed walls with a smile as warm as sunshine. His neck would feel a little sticky with sweat and he would absently rub at the salty beads of moisture while he peered at himself in the dirty mirror. He’d make note after mental note to scrub the smudges from the glass, but he never would. This he knew. Perhaps it was simply his need to feel any semblance of normalcy in this hurricane he’d come to accept as his life that drove him to promise himself things which would never come to fruition.

Through eyes weathered in the absence of sleep he pushed the tips of his fingers along the slight curve of his neck, he inspected the olive toned skin for angry red welts left behind as evidence of the night prior. They always left marks. Always. He would plead with them to leave his skin alone, and on the odd occasion, he did have those who were considerate enough to abide by a simple rule. Others stuffed a $5 bill into his mouth and continued.

With the reminder of his evening now fresh and raw at the front of his mind, his pocket on his left leg felt heavy as though filled to the brim with lead. His hand dropped from his neck to his pocket, inspecting the space with curious fingers. Gathered in his palm after a moment of digging, was a crumpled pile of bills. He took great care in smoothing each bill out carefully on the edge of the chipped vanity pressed against the wall at the end of his bed, securing them with a thin and red rubber band. He swiped his thumb gently across the edges of the bills, and with careful eyes he looked through the colourful spaces between each of the bills and estimated a whopping $250. The most he’d made in a single night in a long time.

With a victorious grin blossoming on his lips, he turned around, slender fingers gripping small flower shaped knobs attached to wooden doors. When the closet was slid all the way open, he dipped below the few clothes that he had hanging in the cavity and gripped the handles of a sturdy plastic bin and positioned it strategically in front of his feet, stepping up so that he could  
touch the roof with his fingertips. If he slid the small cardboard box out of the way, you could see a perfect rectangle cut out of the roof. With robotic movements, he reached up, standing on his toes to slide the wad of cash through the hole and onto the floor of the apartment above his. He’d made this transaction so many times before that it seemed elementary now as opposed to the years that had preceded this moment, where he would fear each moment that he pulled the red stool out from his closet.

On any typical night, he would lay on the mattress pushed up against the wall and stare at the ceiling and trace the brown splotches with his eyes, his bones feeling heavy and sore, his mind clouded and hazy. Tonight was different, however. When the stool was tucked back into place in the closet, he spun on his heels and inched his fingers beneath the seam of the mattress, fingers splayed out in search of the fraying slit that he’d cut into the fabric as a hiding place of sorts. In years prior when he would stash his saved money in the places he deemed suitable, like his vanity drawers or his nightstand cupboard he would return home after a long night and find the bills he’d hidden vanished. This slit in the mattress was easily concealed by the fitted sheet clinging to the corners of it, and he hadn’t lost a dime since. Wedged between two coils of a spring was a wad of cash— $45 dollars that he had saved up. He pulled it out excitedly and counted it, recounted it and then counted it again to ensure he had the right amount of money to pay his contact.

Nervous was a word that he could have used to describe the way his palms were sweating as he combed his hair into place, how his knees were trembling while he slid his worn out sneakers onto his feet. He’d never been to a concert. Sure, in school he had holiday themed concerts that he was permitted to perform in. He played guitar with the junior band back then, but he was performing for parents that never showed and the parents of friends who cared enough to show their faces. Actually attending a concert was something that he had long deemed as a fabled luxury allowed only to those who came from houses with stairs and big bay windows and pots and pans which always remained clean. He never anticipated that he, Jack Barakat, boy from the lowest part of Vancouver could ever be in possession of a ticket to his favourite band.

The venue was at a theatre that looked like it had been built in the 1940’s. There was a tall sign standing atop the building’s awning that was decorated in neon colours that read VOGUE in letters stacked vertically atop one another. Jack never had a taste for the 1940’s music, the glamour of the film and the mafia influence, but the building seemed like a palace to him as he walked up to the front doors. There was a line of kids formed along the street, and Jack had sworn he’d never seen so many people in his life. He nervously fumbled with his fingers, picking at his cuticles while he scanned each face for the one he was supposedly meeting.

His boyfriend had promised that he had a guy who would meet him down on Granville with the ticket. He hadn’t given him any details about him, no defining features. Just a name—Pete. Jack was walking nervously past a mass of teenage girls his feet shuffling slowly so that he could inspect each person, hoping somebody might recognize him. It occurred to him that while he had seen a majority of the city, he’d never actually been down this street. The amount of people was insane. The amount of bars and businesses, each of them looking too glitzy for Jack to even think about entering. It was a fantasy of his, however. One day he would walk down the streets of the city with the wind at his back, and on his body he would have the finest of suits, the flashiest watch on his wrist, all of it purchased by him and not by the clients he was solicited out to each night. He would be the most debonair, handsome man in sight.  
             
          

Dreams, however, were simply that. Dreams.

 

As he had worked his way through the uneasy glares from the women in the lineup, Jack felt a firm hand grip his shoulder. Curiously, he craned his neck and caught the dark, fearsome eyes of somebody unfamiliar to him. Before Jack had a moment to process the man behind him, he was offering an eerily charming grin, pushing the grey hood off of his head. “I’m Pete.” He said simply. Jack released a warm sigh through his nose, concealing his anxiety well. He was conditioned to being stone-cold and emotionless by this point anyways. He managed a small smile though, however it didn’t come from the feeling of being forced, but because this peculiarly small gentleman grasping his shoulder was the man holding the one-way ticket to Jack’s happy place, the only place he could feel both secure and happy.

Excitedly, Jack dipped his fingers into his pocket and fished around for the cash he’d stored loose in the denim so that he could grasp it easier. He smiled as he started pulling out the bills, more small bills than the larger ones. “Hold on,” Pete said quietly, gently looping his fingers around Jack’s forearm. In an instant, all movement stopped and Jack became rigid, looking at this character—Pete, Jack remembered. From the minute he saw him, Jack didn’t exactly have the most amiable feelings towards him. Sure, Jack dwarfed him in size, but this guy...He pegged him as a complete sleaze. His smile was warm enough to be perceived as friendly, but Jack could tell that he was hiding something behind those big, brown eyes of his. The darkest of secrets were always held behind the darkest eyes, Jack had always said. He himself was a prime example of such a statement.

“What?” Jack asked, voice small as he tried to read the man’s features. Studying his face was proving to give him an upper hand of sorts, because if anything—heaven forbid—happened, Jack would have a clear image of the man printed onto the backs of his eyelids for the foreseeable future.  
“Let’s take a walk.” Pete said, gesturing down the street with a terse nod of his head, that sickeningly sweet smile still painted on his lips. Jack swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing visibly. He had two options here, though the only option that stood out to him was to follow the man with the ticket and not ask a single question.

Pete had pulled him—that was the second red flag that Jack noted. The fact that he hadn’t let go of his arm.— down the street and into a small alleyway that opened up into a wider, more expansive alley. Jack’s eyes instinctively scanned for quick escape routes. His attention was ripped from the surroundings as Pete spoke with a sly voice and eyes to match. Jack stood up tall to appear confident, but lord knows he was mortified. “Mike told me you were a little dime. I never expected... _this_.” he hissed, sucking on his teeth. Suddenly, Jack’s insides had become liquefied, seeping slowly down his legs and straight into his feet. He teetered on his heels, his heart slamming against his ribs. He didn’t breathe a word of response, just stood there motionless.  


“You been savin’ that cash for awhile now, haven’t you. Mikey told me you was poor.” Pete added, Jack now avoiding the eyes that he could feel on his body. Eyes licking over each of his curves and each of his imperfections. He looked down at his feet now, tracing the dirty shoelaces with his own eyes. This time, though, he nodded. Pete caught the response and hummed the sound low and eerie in the back of his throat. Jack remembered how he looked at himself in the mirror back in his bedroom, how excited he had been as he meticulously selected his outfit for the night, ensured his hair was perfectly in place and how all of that preparation seemed so distant now. He tried not to allow this to bother him, and on a normal night, it wouldn’t have. Men hit on him all the time, but he just...He just thought that Mike wouldn’t have crossed that line. Mike wouldn’t sell him to his _friends_.

Pete stepped to the side, looking over Jack’s other features, and when jack noted that his eyes were positively glued to his rear end, he nervously counteracted the sidestep and offered a lopsided smile to Pete. He could get out of this situation, it’d be easy. He hadn’t spent seven years on the streets and learned nothing. Jack fumbled around in his pocket quickly. When he pulled his hand out, in his palm was all the money, now crumpled and folded haphazardly. He held it out to the smaller man, his eyebrows meeting as he concentrated on the words he was trying to say. “Here,” he said, jutting his closed fist out to Pete. “just take it. I have the money. Don’t play me like this, man...” Jack said, his voice smaller than he’d intended for it to be. Pete’s eyes moved languidly up Jack’s abdomen, across his chest until it finally landed on his lips.  
“I’m a nice guy...Josh? Was it Josh?”  
“Jack.” Jack corrected. Pete nodded apologetically. The funny thing was that he wasn’t apologetic for the thing he should be. The single thing he was making it clear that he wanted without saying it. Jack’s insides felt like they were on fire. He recalled a time in his life when that feeling was completely normal, something he would feel every day on his way home from school when he would remember Michael’s face waiting for him upstairs. He always thought that Jack was at work, and Jack never corrected him. Now, however, this feeling of fire raging on in the pit of his abdomen was one that felt blistering. He tried to step backwards, but there was the damned hand around his wrist again. Jack didn’t resist.  
“I won’t ask to screw you. I do, however, expect some payment for this,” He said, pulling the thin blue and white ticket from his pocket. He taunted Jack with it by waving it in front of his face, a triumphant grin on his lips. Jack blinked. Swallowed.

There was a process that Jack went through in these situations. A process called shutdown, though he didn’t physically shut down. He locked down the parts of his brain that received fear and anger, shut down the receptors that gathered pain and grieving and slammed the switches, cutting off anything that allowed him to feel. He was a robot straight from the factory with fresh settings, he liked to think. That’s how he wanted to be in situations like this, however. The less he recalled the morning after the better.

Behind them, there was a wide dumpster that had once been coloured yellow; however time and weather had turned it to rust. Much of the colour was still visible on the side facing them. Jack remembered nodding towards it and forcing his feet to carry him towards it with Pete in tow. After that, he became empty and vapid, plunged into darkness by the thin rope of sanity he desperately clung to.


End file.
